


I Woke With This Fear

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-19 16:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12413796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Clara thought that the worst thing the Zygons could take from her was her life. But after overhearing something devastating, she realises that she was wrong, and that there are lives that matter far more than her own...





	I Woke With This Fear

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by a deleted scene from The Zygon Invasion, which features Bonnie-as-Clara and Jaq returning to Clara's flat after seeing the Doctor off on the presidential plane. Bonnie-as-Clara listens to Clara's answerphone messages, which are transcribed at the beginning of this work, before leaving with Jaq. The implications of this scene, and what it would mean for Clara, brought about this fic.

_Message received yesterday at 6:37 p.m._

_Clara love, can you pop round and see if… it’s Auntie Vi. I’m a bit worried, have you spoken to your dad recently? Well, he’s not really himself, and… well, I don’t know. There’s_ something _. I’m starting to worry about Alzheimer’s, no one else seems to notice. He doesn’t seem like your dad. Give us a ring._

_Next new message. Message received today at 5:15 a.m._

_Clara, it’s Auntie Violet again. It’s all fine. Don’t worry about it._

Clara heard the messages, of course. They bled through Bonnie’s consciousness and into hers, and, at first, she refused to believe the insinuations of the mechanical, impersonal words reeled off by her answering machine. It had to be some kind of deception; some kind of false reality that her Zygon duplicate was feeding to her in an attempt to make her crack. Psychological Warfare 101: go for a person’s weak spot. Despite her concerns about her father’s choice of wife and his political party, he was and always would be her weak spot — one of her only Achilles’ heels left on Earth, particularly now that Danny had… well … she tried not to dwell on that idea; she wasn’t entirely sure how much of her thoughts Bonnie could hear, and there was no need to give her any more ammunition than she already had access to. 

It was so easy, when she was trapped in the pod, to write the voicemails off as a lie — to dismiss them as being a falsehood and to firmly bury them at the back of her mind, preoccupied as she was with trying to stop her psychotic Zygon duplicate from killing her best friend, killing her, and taking over the planet. Besides, she tried to tell herself, Auntie Violet was odd at the best of times, and there was probably a perfectly logical explanation for both her and her father’s strange behaviour. Linda could be accounted for as a cause for the latter, and as for the former… well, she wasn’t entirely sure why her elderly aunt might be awake at 5:15 a.m, but she was sure there was a perfectly good reason. Maybe she’d got up to let the cat out, or maybe she’d just found herself unable to sleep due to some kind of subconscious concern for her niece. That was a thing, wasn’t it? That was definitely a thing. Her aunt had obviously sensed that her niece was currently stuck in a Zygon pod several hundred metres below London, and had woken up in a blind panic. That made… some kind of sense, or so Clara tried to tell herself. 

A small part of her knew that it didn’t. A small part of her niggled away insistently as she paced around her brain’s reconstruction of her flat, and she paused by her bookshelf, her hand hovering over the photograph album she kept there. She was half-tempted to flip it open and look at the photos contained within, but her logical mind knew that there was only so much detail her own brain could provide as a comfort blanket, and she shuddered to think how corrupted the images might have become somewhere between her memories and this illusion. Instead, she returned to pacing and reciting times tables in an attempt to calm herself, one hand on her forehead as she screwed her eyes shut and made a concerted effort not to think about her father in one of those Zygon pods.

Besides, even if he was in a pod somewhere… he couldn’t be dead, surely? _She_ wasn’t dead, after all, and she remembered from her previous encounter with the Zygons that they needed to keep the original alive. That thought sustained her, her mouth twisting into an involuntary smile as she paced and felt her heart rate slow towards something approaching normal. Her dad probably wasn’t dead. Auntie Violet probably wasn’t dead. Everything would be fine. The Doctor would save the world and get her out of here, and then she would go and find her family. 

_“I can kill you.”_

_“Go on, then.”_

_“You think you’re calling my bluff.”_

_“I_ am _calling your bluff. You need me alive.”_

 _“Only as a source of information.”_  

Clara felt her last glimmers of hope diminish as she understood the implications of Bonnie’s words. Her father and her aunt had no value as sources of information. The only things they had to offer the Zygons were their identities, and those had been taken from them; the likelihood of their survival was decreasing with each passing minute. She wanted to cry and scream and curse, but her time with the Doctor had taught her one thing: emotions had a time and a place, and inside a Zygon pod was neither the time nor place to lose her composure. She would not give Bonnie the satisfaction, or let her know what she knew. The Doctor needed her to stay calm and to do what they had discussed, and so that was what she would do; she would allow him to orchestrate his part of the plan, and only then would she permit herself the luxury of falling apart.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until much later, when she was finally free from Bonnie and the pod and standing at the TARDIS console with the Doctor by her side and his gruff, clumsily fond words echoing in her ears, that she allowed herself to think about the issue once more.

“Doctor?” she began, fighting to keep her voice level as she looked down at the levers and buttons of the console to avoid meeting his gaze. “I, ah… my family…” 

Her voice broke on the last syllable, and that was all that she needed to say. He knew. He always knew, and as tears spilled down her cheeks, he placed an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to his chest in a comforting gesture. 

“You’re alive,” he told her in a quiet, fierce voice. “So, they must be, too.” 

“How do we…” she stammered, swiping one hand over her eyes and remembering, belatedly, that she had been wearing eyeliner. “How…”

“We’d have to ask someone.” 

“What, the Zygons themselves? Oh yeah, that’d go so well. ‘Hello, Zygon who’s pretending to be my dad. Have you murdered any humans recently? Was one of them Dave Oswald?’ Yeah, they’d be really truthful with us now that Bonnie’s stood the revolution down.” 

“Clara,” he said gently, and she hated him for knowing that her angry, bitter words concealed the hurt beneath. “Clara, there’s someone who would know.” 

Comprehension dawned on her then, sudden and unwelcome, and she shook her head fervently. “No,” she said at once. “No, not her. We’re not asking her. No.”

“She’s the only one who might be truthful with us.” 

“What does she stand to gain by being truthful with us?” Clara all but shouted. “She’s already tried to start an uprising and killed… how many UNIT soldiers? Why would she confess to more murders?”

“Kindness.” 

“This is the problem with you,” she spat, twisting away from his embrace and clenching her fists at her sides. “You think the whole universe has a shred of decency. Well, it doesn’t. She locked me in a pod, Doctor. She would have killed me, given the chance.”

“But she didn’t.” 

“We’re not asking her!” 

“Do you want to know what happened to your family or not?” he asked in exasperation, and the fight went out of her in an instant, her shoulders slumping.

“Yes,” she confessed, hating herself even as she said it. “Yes, I do.”

“So, we’ll ask her.” 

Clara closed her eyes as the Doctor piloted the TARDIS back to the place they had just all but fled. There was a rising sense of nausea in the pit of her stomach and she tried to take deep, level breaths to allay her panic; tried to assure herself that her family would be fine, they would be safe, and that she was making a big deal over nothing. 

“Clara?” the Doctor’s voice was uncharacteristically soft as he held out his hand to her, and for once there was no comment on the tip of her tongue about his newfound tolerance of physical contact. There was only terror, and gratitude, and a desire to hold onto him and never let go, so she took his outstretched hand and let him lead her outside to where the Osgoods were perched on a park bench, ice creams halfway to their mouths as they gaped at the TARDIS in visible confusion.

“Doctor?” one of them began as the Doctor and Clara approached. “What-” 

“Whichever one of you isn’t Bonnie, I’d suggest leaving,” his voice was hard and cold, and he looked between them with disdain. “Now.” 

As Clara squeezed his hand more tightly than she was sure was entirely comfortable, the Osgood wearing a shirt with question marks on the collar got to her feet. “I think I know what this is about,” she mumbled, giving her ice cream a somewhat forlorn lick before looking back at her double. “I’ll be back at HQ.” 

The Osgood wearing an enormous camel-coloured coat eyed the two of them with great confusion as the Doctor glowered down at her. 

“You. TARDIS. Now.”

“I…” 

“ _Now._ ” 

With a weary sigh, she deposited the remains of her ice cream into the nearest bin and followed the two of them inside, closing the door behind her and looking around with a sense of barely concealed awe that neither Clara nor the Doctor felt like indulging. 

“You know what we want, don’t you?” the Doctor asked. “Why we came back?”

“No,” Osgood — no, _Bonnie_ — said. “I have no idea.” 

“Clara?” 

“My family,” Clara said tightly, letting go of the Doctor’s hand and taking a step towards the Zygon. “What did your freaks do to my family?”

“I…” Bonnie stammered, visibly taken aback by Clara’s casual use of the term. “I don’t… what?”

“Are they alive?” Clara asked, her anger dissipating as she found herself looking at the Zygon with desperation. “Please. That’s all I need to know. My dad. Is he alive?” She took a chance then, praying that the two of them were still at least partially telepathically connected, and concentrating on her father’s face. 

Bonnie visibly recoiled, taking half a step back and looking abruptly guilty. 

“Clara…” she stammered. “You… you have to understand that we had your family under surveillance… We needed to know about you…” 

“So you targeted my family?” 

“We didn’t _target_ them, not at first! We just needed to observe them; to understand them and to understand you!” 

“‘Not at first’? So, things changed?”

“Yes, things changed… when it was decided I was going to take your place, we needed to be sure I wouldn’t be exposed. W-we moved in and…” 

“And?” Clara asked, her voice low and dangerous. 

“And we made the swap. Your father first, and then after she left that message, your aunt.” 

“What did you do with them?” the Doctor interjected. “Bonnie, that’s what we need to know.” 

“You have to understand,” the Zygon began, beginning to look frightened. “We were fundamentalists. We would have done anything for the cause. We-” 

“Bonnie,” he snarled, as Clara’s legs began to give way underneath her. “Answer the damn question.” 

“They were executed,” Bonnie confessed in a whisper. “By operatives from one of our northern cells.” 

Clara felt her knees hit the ice-cold metal of the console room floor as the sounds around her faded away. She was dimly aware of the Doctor’s presence, and she was almost certain he was saying her name, but it didn’t matter. Her father was dead. Her father was dead, and the creature responsible for it was stood in the console room with the audacity to still be breathing. 

There was a sudden awareness of the sound of Bonnie’s heartbeat, loud and fast and sickeningly alive. 

A blinding flash of anger.

The next thing she knew she was launching herself at the Zygon, tackling her to the floor and beginning to punch and gouge and slap every available piece of skin she could get her hands on. It was frightening at first, how soft and distinctly human Bonnie felt underneath her, but, as her skin darkened with rusted blood, Clara’s shock melted away and vengefulness settled over her as she administered her revenge with her knuckles and her nails and her open palms. 

And the Doctor? That great condemner of violence? That great advocate of pacifism and rationality? 

He let her be. For several minutes, he let her exact her punishment, and then he reached down and hooked his hand into the collar of her coat, hauling her to her feet. 

“Enough now,” he told her without reprimand, and the fight went out of her almost instantaneously as she felt herself sag against him, turning away from Bonnie’s prone and battered figure on the metal flooring and clinging to his shirt with her broken, bloodied hands. “Bonnie, can you stand?” 

“Yes,” the Zygon said in a tremulous voice, and there was the faint noise of her doing so. “Doctor…” 

“I would offer to patch you up, but I feel my companion wouldn’t take that too well.” 

“I deserved that,” Bonnie admitted, and Clara looked over at her then, taking in her bruised and bloodied face with a bitter sense of satisfaction. “I can clean myself up at home. I ah… I’ll be off now. Please know that I’m sorry, I truly am.”

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, and Bonnie nodded by way of response, walking stiffly over to the doors and stepping outside. He turned his attention to his companion. “Clara, I need to patch _you_ up.” 

Clara blinked sluggishly, looking down at her hands and feeling, for the first time, the dull ache of her knuckles. “Oh,” she said faintly. “Yes.” 

He picked her up then, to her considerable surprise, and carried her to the medical bay with her head against his chest, setting her down on a bed and then beginning to rifle through cupboards. Clara only lay there, completely passive, only moving to turn her face away from him before starting to cry silently.

“Hey,” he said kindly, stroking one hand over her hair, but she wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t. Couldn’t let him see the shame and the suffering on her face; couldn’t let the façade of coping slip any further. He only sighed in resignation, and the next thing she was aware of was him wiping her hands with a warm flannel, taking particular care around her scarlet-stained knuckles and cuticles, and touching her as though she were made of glass. “My brave Clara.” 

“Not brave,” she mumbled thickly, as he moved on to her other hand. “Not brave, Doctor; they’re dead and I’m not brave about that at all.” 

She started to weep in earnest then, great ugly sobs that shook her shoulders, and after a moment he moved around the bed and met her gaze with the utmost concern. “Hey,” he said again. “You can grieve them, Clara. There is no shame in grieving.” 

“But there’s every shame in hurting Bonnie,” she managed through her tears. “Why didn’t you stop me?” 

“Because it was something you both needed,” he said simply, shrugging as he spoke. “For you, it was retribution and, for her, taking the blows was self-punishment.” 

“I hurt her!” 

“Because you yourself are hurting,” he took a seat beside her then, letting her scoot onto his lap and curl into him. “It’s alright, my Clara. Let it all out.” 

And she did — she wept and she raged and she howled and she swore for what felt like hours. When she was done, he only took a clean flannel and wordlessly wiped at her eyes and cheeks, removing the last vestiges of her makeup and the outward signs of her grief before settling her back on the bed and arranging himself by her side. 

“M’tired,” she realised abruptly, yawning as she placed one hand against his chest and felt the reassuring double-beat of his hearts. “So tired.” 

“I know.”

“Can you…” 

“I’ll be here. Rest now, Clara.” 

She made a small noise of contentment as she laid her head on his shoulder, and the last thing she remembered before she fell asleep was her father’s voice, low and soft and soothing. 

_Because this exact leaf had to grow in that exact way in that exact place so that precise wind could tear it from that precise branch and make it fly into this exact face at that exact moment. And if just one of those tiny little things had never happened, I'd never have met your mother, and we’d never have had you. Which makes this the most important leaf in human history, my love._


End file.
